Monthly Archives: March 2012

Two way radio contact on 40 meters (7.134 Mhz) – PJ2/DK5ON in Curaco – according to his QRZ.COM page he is using the same radio model that I am using … so two “Kenwood TS-480″ radios made the contact. Power used on both ends = 100 Watts.

Like this:

They say (whoever they are) that Noone ever looks up … But they probably don’t look (or think about) DOWN either. With lots of wireless signals and satellite signals for a lot of things coming from high up above us … before those satellite signals get bounced around through space many of them likely go underwater through submarine cables that link continents together. And there are a LOT of them now.

Customer -> ATTCustomerCare – will you offer tethering for the new iPad?

ATTCustomerCare -> Customer – As of now we are not. If it changes we will tweet it out.

At yesterdays press conference, Apple made a big deal about how you could tether your new iPad to your laptop or other device, if your carrier supports Personal Hotspot.

Hey, guys, guess which big two U.S. carriers wont support Personal Hotspot on the new iPad? Yup, Verizon and AT&T, meaning that theres no way to tether your laptop to your iPads blistering LTE speeds.
Its surprising, only in wake of Apple specifically highlighting the capability. That said, Verizon and AT&Ts LTE networks are very, very young and under developed right now it makes sense they would want to do everything in their power to prevent them from being crushed.

International carriers, of course, will probably support the feature, if not LTE 4G.

(more at the Cult of Mac link above…)

P.S. Maybe this is why the likes of [insert BIG cellular gear manufacturer] won’t release 4G LTE products to the general (and Marine) public. The carriers are still afraid of their networks being “crushed” by Shared Internet Connection devices? Tethering is a similar concept to any 3G or 4G “Router” that can share a Cellular Internet Connection with more than one user.

* Maybe we should recommend sticking with http://www.marinetelecom.net/Ericsson_W35 3G, 3G+ Cellular Internet on boats … for now. Let’s let this 4G LTE “stuff” mature a little bit more. We are always forward looking for the best and the fastests … but we may be a bit ahead of the 4G LTE (being really ready) curve at this point in time. T-Mobile and AT&T have been touting their upgraded faster UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+ networks as being 4G anyway. We always like to have the latest gadgets … sometimes just for bragging rights … but sometimes it’s better to wait until “the dust settles” a little bit before taking the plunge.

Unfortunately I must also report that I’ve just seen a leaked email strongly suggesting that Inmarsat is going to significantly raise its rates in the months ahead. You may recall that Inmarsat caused a stir last year when it enacted rate policy changes that seemed particularly hurtful to cruisers who used Fleet Broadband lightly or only for parts of the year. That situation was tough to figure out as there are so many layers between Inmarsat and the end customer, and some of those layers (like KVH) also compete against Inmarsat with their VSAT service (which can now be globalized with integrated Iridium OpenPort). I was also pleased to learn last fall that Intellian is somehow offering lower-end FB service bundles that can be turned on and off without fees.

But if I understand the email correctly that minimum $55 plan listed below may more than triple in May, and it will have nothing to do with Intellian. In fact, it looks like almost all Inmarsat rates, including Sat C and Mini-M, will go up to some degree regardless of the distribution partner or service provider involved. I’ll certainly be interested in the reaction when and if these leaked rate changes materialize, and I’m quite willing to report on Inmarsat’s side of the story — could the failing LightSquared deal have something to do with this? — but it surely looks like the company doesn’t feel much obligation to the boaters who purchased expensive yacht-size FB hardware once able to get online most anywhere at reasonable costs if carefully used.

PS 3/2: I don’t know if this Panbo entry had anything to do with today’s Inmarsat letter attempting to explain the coming rate changes, but unfortunately I see no reassurance for customers who use their satellite services lightly or seasonally. For instance, how the heck does raising minimum monthly rates “benefit” Inmarsat’s “most valued high-usage customers”? Does Inmarsat not understand how locked-in their low-usage customers are, or are they banking on it? The lowest priced Fleet Broadband terminal is $5000, I think, and that’s before installation. And when the FB 150 debuted in 2009, it was Inmarsat itself crowing about how “affordable” it was for cruising yachts. If I’d bought one then I’d be outraged if the minimum rates available when I made the purchase went up drastically.
Heck, even cell service companies are careful about this sort of behaviour, which is why I still have a $30 unlimited data plan even though Verizon went to metered plans last year. Satellite Phone Support is reporting that Inmarsat will also raise hardware prices and service rates on the iSatphone Pro and goes on to suggest that it might be a good idea to get one now. I’ve been enthusiastic about that phone myself, but I question buying any communications hardware when the sole service provider seems to think it’s perfectly OK to raise rates when they “feel this change properly reflects the value.” You can download the Inmarsat letter here; what do you think?

(… these are snippets from Panbos Marine Blog … see the whole thing at the link above.)

* Alan Spicer is an advocate for lower prices, ability to turn off satellite systems when not needed in dock where other services are available, and works towards providing Cost Saving devices using such Internet Service alternatives. There’s nothing wrong with Satellite Internet if and when you can afford the rates. (Lost Revenue = Revenue you never had, but you projected it … or wished you had it, but you didn’t get it, so now since you promised stock holders you have to try and get it back [somehow?].)

The storm, a big cloud of charged particles flung from the Sun at about 4.5 million miles per hour (7.2 million km per hour), was spawned by a pair of solar flares, scientists said.

This is probably the strongest such event in nearly six years, and is likely more intense than a similar storm in late January, said Joseph Kunches, a space weather specialist at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The coronal mass ejection (CME) associated with the R3 (Strong) Radio Blackout event from 0024 UTC March 7 (7:24 p.m. EST March 6) arrived at ACE at 1045 UTC today (5:45 a.m. EST March 8). So far the orientation of the magnetic field has been opposite of what is needed to cause the strongest storming. As the event progresses, that field will continue to change. Based on overall strength, the predictions for periods reaching the G3 level look justified. Additionally, the Solar Radiation Storm levels remain above the S3 (Strong) threshold at this time, with values rising momentarily with shock arrival. Region 1429 remains potent and subsequent activity is certainly possible. Updates here as conditions warrant.

Like this:

New video is up on www.wifiyacht.net and screen shots of the new Web GUI interface for the system are also on there. I have also uploaded and made available on there the new 2012 Owners Manual which doubles as a Brochure for the system … if you need something to download and send to someone else like the owner of the yacht (or a friend or colleague.)

This is the video that went up on Youtube tonight, and will be on www.wifiyacht.net shortly …

This was shot with an iPhone 4S camera … so don’t worry the video production won’t change the price of the LS II Marine WiFi System. It’s still fixed at $800.00 not counting any shipping (or installation if you need installation.)

Like this:

In “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” Sarah Connor tells a skeptical doctor that “anyone not wearing 2 million sunblock is gonna have a real bad day.”

Well it wasn’t really THAT bad … but there were a lot stations around the world giving their contest exchange “5-9 K” or 5 by 9 Kilowatt. Which means they were running 1 Kilowatt of RF power from their HF transmitters. There were some scattered 100 watt stations and I worked some of them. But I believe there were a LOT of Amateur Radio stations “On The Air” in the U.S. and worldwide running 200, 400, 600 and more watts. You wouldn’t want to be too close to an antenna sending out 400 or more watts of power. Lucky for all most of those signals go out from antennas 30 or more feet up in the air and most of the radio energy goes towards the horizon or even higher radiation angles. (more towards the sky and bouncing off of the upper layers – e.g. the ionosphere.)

It was the ARRL DX Contest from 12:00 AM UTC on Saturday until 12:00 AM Monday UTC time which was 7:00 PM Eastern Time Sunday night. The idea was for US stations to contact as many non-US stations as possible, and for non-US stations to contact as many US stations as possible in that time period. Rack ‘em Stack ‘em and Pack ‘em. There were DX Pileups … there were frequeny bands that had stations so close together that you had to turn every knob on your radio (transceiver) to be able to separate them. Sometimes you could not separate them. Normally amateur radio stations will try to stay a few Khz away from each other when having separate communications. But during the contest they were very often Hz away from each other. Say 50 Hz or 100 Hz away at times. Anything less than 3 Khz or 3000 Hz and with strong signals and “hearing” anything becomes almost impossible. Modern H.F. Band Amateur Radio transceivers do have quite a few filters and such that can help quite a bit. But that close together and almost nothing helps. That’s where *I* think many hams prove their operating capabilities. If you can work stations with that kinds of interference … you are a very special person indeed. I think the average (non Ham) person would give up very quickly. Just the irritating noises of SSB signals off frequency (becomes higher pitched and squeeky or low pitched and blah blah blah blah [unintelligable low to mid toned NOISE]) would cause most people to turn the thing completely off. Not the Ham Radio operators that like contesting though … they will go at it for hours at a time. And actually make 100’s of contacts through thick and thin during the contest. The award winners make 1000’s of contacts.

So you had a lot more radio waves coming down on you this weekend. I hope everyone is ok?

P.S. I was running on average around 500 watts. My radio (tranceiver) does 100 watts by itself. My Ameritron AL-811 Amplifier boosted that up to the 500 watt + range. I put some iPhone shot videos of the contest (many were contacts I made) up on Youtube:

Like this:

For example you are trying to install “nmap” on Ubuntu Desktop 10.04 … and you get this CRAP … And no matter what you do APT installer won’t shut up … and won’t install anything else. And it seems you cannot uninstall these myqsl things … Several other posts online failed to give enough information to fix this. But this one post did. First of all this is the situation as I was seeing it:

————————————————————————————————-

root@ka4udx-desktop:/var/spool# apt-get install nmap

Reading package lists… Done

Building dependency tree

Reading state information… Done

You might want to run `apt-get -f install’ to correct these:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:

mysql-cluster-server-5.1: Depends: mysql-cluster-client-5.1 but it is not going to be installed

* For those of you that DON’T CARE click Next now … everyone else keep going. This is an EXACT paste from my Terminal screen on the Ubuntu box showing when the problem cleared up. It may look like a jumbled mess … but it worked … and I was able to install NMAP with APT right at the end:
————————————————————————————————-

root@ka4udx-desktop:/usr/lib# ls -l *mysql*

ls: cannot access *mysql*: No such file or directory

root@ka4udx-desktop:/usr/lib# cd /var/spool/

root@ka4udx-desktop:/var/spool# ls

anacron cron cups exim4 mail openoffice plymouth

root@ka4udx-desktop:/var/spool# /usr/lib/libmysqlclient.so.16.0.0^C

root@ka4udx-desktop:/var/spool# ls /usr/var

ls: cannot access /usr/var: No such file or directory

root@ka4udx-desktop:/var/spool# ls /var/

backups crash lib lock mail run tmp

cache games local log opt spool www

root@ka4udx-desktop:/var/spool# ls /var/cache/

apache2 debconf gdm man software-center

apt dictionaries-common hald pm-utils

binfmts flashplugin-installer jockey pppconfig

cups fontconfig ldconfig samba

root@ka4udx-desktop:/var/spool# ls /var/cache/apt

archives pkgcache.bin srcpkgcache.bin

root@ka4udx-desktop:/var/spool# ls /var/cache/apt/archives/

lock

root@ka4udx-desktop:/var/spool# apt-get clean all

E: Archive directory /var/cache/apt/archives/partial is missing.

E: Unable to read /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/ – opendir (2: No such file or directory)

root@ka4udx-desktop:/var/spool# mkdir /var/cache/apt/archives/partial

root@ka4udx-desktop:/var/spool# apt-get clean all

root@ka4udx-desktop:/var/spool# apt-get -f install

Reading package lists… Done

Building dependency tree

Reading state information… Done

Correcting dependencies… Done

The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: